The search continued Friday over a wide area for two Air Force pilots still missing after a mid-air collision that killed two of their comrades in the skies above Marche in eastern Italy earlier in the week.
Search-and-rescue operations that began after the Tuesday accident between two Tornado jets during an Air Force training mission continued through the night and into Friday morning.
Investigators say human error was a possible cause of the collision that scattered pieces of burning wreckage across a forested area, triggering fires. One of the missing aviators, Mariangela Valentini, a 31-year-old Air Force veteran from Novara province, has experience in military operations in Afghanistan and Libya. She was the captain on one jet with Piero Paolo Franzese as her co-pilot and navigator.
The other craft was captained by Alessandro Dotto, from a suburb of Turin, with Guiseppe Palminteri of Naples as his co-pilot.
Two badly burned male bodies were found soon after the accident but authorities have not released their identities.
One was found in the fuselage of a downed aircraft one kilometer from the Marche town of Ascoli Piceno.
Family and friends of the pilots travelled to Ascoli Piceno for news as investigators working with military officials and an Air Force technical committee collected pieces of the wreckage as they attempt to determine the cause.
Sources say investigators have found the two black boxes from the jets containing flight data which are expected to answer many questions.
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